DerBrowserTimer 
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What's New
- 01/18/05 - Version 0.4 released.
- 11/18/04 - Updated DBT to work with Firefox 1.0.
- 09/24/04 - Updated DBT to work with Firefox 1.0PR.
Of Interest
Der Browser Timer
Der Browser Timer is a timer/clock/alarm add-on for the Mozilla FireFox browser.
It allows you to set an audible and/or visual alarm by specifying the alarm time in one of three ways: as a relative count down time (e.g. set the alarm to go off in thirty minutes), as an absolute target time (e.g. set the alarm to go off at 7:45 am), or as a regular interval (e.g. set the alarm to go off hourly at five minutes before the hour). In addition, Der Browser Timer can be set to signal the hour and/or half hour with an alternate tone like a cuckoo clock.
The program is functionally, if not visually, patterned after a clock radio, with a simple interface consisting of a digital time readout and several indicator icons that can be placed anywhere on one of the browser toolbars. Left clicking on the time will toggle between several display formats. Right clicking will open the main application menu where you can enable the alarm, access Der Browser Timer settings, and display Help information.
Der Browser Timer isn't designed for task scheduling or event planning - if you're interested in the latter, try the Mozilla Calendar extension.
Other features:- Multiple time and date display formats. Menu bar clock can display the current time (in 12- or 24-hour format), the current date, browser uptime, or the time remaining until the alarm, if any, is set to fire.
- Optional alarm notifications include popup window, alert slider, and audible alarm, in addition to the reasonably unobtrusive menu bar icons used to indicate alarm. Can also load one or more web pages at alarm time.
- Choice of alarm and cuckoo sounds. Currently includes four standard alarm sounds, four cuckoo sounds, and the option to specify a .wav file for either.
- Snooze function: click the alarm icon on the menu bar or use the snooze bar in the alarm notification popup window to temporarily silence the alarm.
- Configurable alarm timeout and auto reset option. Alarm can turn itself off or reset automatically, if desired.
Future Enhancements
The following new features and enhancements are planned for the near future:
- verbal time announcement alarm/cuckoo sound option
- reimplementing the alarm function as a service (singleton) - this should allow for persisting the cuckoo on/off state, and, possibly, standing alarms
- expanding alarm sound options to include 1) .ogg files and, possibly, streams by providing an ogg vorbis player component via XPCOM and 2) other audio file formats by spawning a third party player as Foobar Controls does.
- sleep timer, which will provide the capability to play audio (a set of audio files, or possibly an internet stream) until it expires.
- a minimal Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) client
Acknowledgements
The original menu bar location and time display toggling feature of Der Browser Timer were modeled after the Clock extension.
I've learned and borrowed from many other MozApp projects over the past year, including the following: Googlebar, Chatzilla, Calendar, Sage, ForecastFox, and JsLib, which I've used as a source library and code example archive. Creating Applications with Mozilla and the XUL Tutorial are required reading, and XUL Planet's reference documents, particularly the discussion of RDF which begins here, have been indispensable. For FireFox extension development, Jed Brown's exposition of the new API is a helpful complement to the official documentation.
Feedback
Your comments or suggestions are welcome - please see the contact page for information about how to get in touch.